Jekyll
A Ruby tool that turns Markdown and templates into a static website, with blog support.
- Stars
- 51.7k
- Forks
- 10.3k
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- Ruby
- Last update
- 23 days ago
- Type
- Dev tool
What it is
Jekyll is a static site generator written in Ruby. You write content in files such as Markdown, combine it with templates, and it builds a folder of plain HTML pages that can be hosted anywhere. The description calls it blog-aware, and its topics include blog engine and Liquid templating. The README was not included in full, so details beyond the metadata are limited.
- Build a personal or project blog from Markdown posts
- Generate a static documentation or landing site and host it on a static file host
- Reuse layouts and templates across many pages using Liquid templating
Great for
- Developers who want a blog or simple website built from plain text files
- People comfortable with Ruby tooling and the command line
- Writers who prefer Markdown and want static HTML output
- Projects that need hosting without a database or server-side code
Not ideal for
- Non-technical users who need a point-and-click site builder, since setup requires Ruby and the command line
- Sites that need dynamic features like user accounts or live database queries, since output is static files
- Teams that want a hosted service rather than running a build tool themselves
How to get it
- 1
Install with a package manager
You'll need: Ruby
Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll - 2
Run it
- Install Ruby on your machine
- Install Jekyll following the instructions on the official site at jekyllrb.com
- Create a new site using the Jekyll command line tool
- Start the local server and open the generated site in a browser
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Read the official documentation at jekyllrb.com for configuration options
- Use Liquid templates and front matter to reuse layouts across pages
- Check the latest release v4.4.1 for changes before upgrading
Downloads
Strengths
- Widely used open-source project with a large community (about 51,700 stars)
- Released under the permissive MIT license
- Produces plain static files that are simple to host and hard to break
Trade-offs
- Requires a Ruby environment, which adds setup work for non-developers
- README content was truncated, so detailed feature coverage could not be verified here
How it compares
| Project | Stars | Type | Level | Updated | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| jekyll (this) | 51.7k | Dev tool | intermediate | 23 days ago | Developers who want a blog or simple website built from plain text files |
| hexo | 41.8k | Framework | intermediate | 10 days ago | Bloggers who want a fast static site they fully control |
| gatsby | 55.9k | Framework | intermediate | 17 days ago | Developers building content-heavy sites such as blogs or documentation |
| vuepress | 22.7k | Dev tool | intermediate | 2.2 years ago | Developers with an existing VuePress v1 documentation site who need to keep it running |
| buildawesome | 20k | Dev tool | intermediate | 5 days ago | Developers who want a static site generator with a lighter setup than Jekyll |
| nextra | 13.9k | Framework | intermediate | 3 months ago | Developers who want a documentation site built on Next.js and React |
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.